Sinister Forces Terrorize a Town The town of Brindinford is in the midst of its annual street fair. Joy and merriment abound - until calamity disrupts the celebration. Are rival gangs responsible? Is the government sliding into tyranny? Or is a nightmarish plot about to come to fruition? "The Speaker in Dreams" is a stand-alone adventure for the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® game. Player characters are in for a wild ride in this river town. Leave the dungeon behind: the terrors lurking in Brindinford are more challenging by far! In The Speaker in Dreams, the town of Brindinford is besieged by evil forces under the command of Ghaerleth Axom. A street fair is interrupted by an attack, which serves as a distraction for the villain's forces to attack the keep of the local baron. This provides an entry point for the player characters into the main quest to discover the secret alliances trying to take over the town. The Speaker in Dreams is an event-based, rather than site-based, adventure.
Though small, Seawell is a prosperous trading town with a good location on the coast. Next to it is a long peninsula that features mostly swamplike terrain. The inhabitants of this peninsula include tribes of lizardfolk, plus several kinds of reptiles and amphibians. Most of these creatures don't bother the town, and Seawell's militia is experienced at repulsing raids by the more aggressive lizardfolk. A large reef extends the entire length of the peninsula on the side away from Seawell. This great wall of coral is a favorite site for fishermen, but it has always presented a serious hazard to ships approaching from that direction. Thus, about 45 years ago, the people of Seawell built a lighthouse on a small promontory near the reef, about 200 yards from the shoreline. Operated by a family that lived inside it, this lighthouse ensured that ships could easily steer clear of the reef. A few weeks ago, ships stopped arriving from that direction. Three ships are now overdue, and the people of Seawell have begun to suspect foul play. Thus far, however, they have not been able to investigate because of increased raiding by the lizardfolk. Something has stirred them up, and the town militia has been too busy repulsing raids to mount an expedition to the reef. Wreck Ashore is a short D&D adventure for four 1st level player characters (PCs). The scenario takes place on and around a swampy peninsula that juts out from a longer stretch of coastline. Along one side of this peninsula stretches a dangerous reef. Just offshore on the reef side stands a lighthouse built to warn ships of the danger. At the base of the peninsula on the side away from the reef is a small port town called Seawell.
In “Rescue at Rivenroar,” the player characters must brave the depths of ancient catacombs in search of prisoners taken from the town of Brindol in a midnight raid. The hobgoblins, bandits that style themselves after an invading horde from long ago, have taken refuge in a dungeon under a ruined mountain fortress, and the PCs must clear them out to find the captive townsfolk and the treasures taken from Brindol. “Rescue at Rivenroar” also marks the first step in a great journey - the Scales of War Adventure Path, which spans 30 levels and put the PCs at the crux of events that shapes the world for centuries to come. While the scope of this adventure isn’t as grand, it represents the seed from which an epic tale will surely grow. Pgs. 4-45
4e's 'Expedition to the Barrier Peaks'... on the moon! Using the technology of a lost civilisation, illithids have been cloning influential people. The PCs must navigate a strange sci-fi environment and defeat the illithids. Additional items & malfunction rules can be found in Dragon #410 & Gamma World 7e.
This adventure takes place in the Moonsea of Faerûn. The players have been brought to Melvaunt to search for the missing scions of the city's great families. To the north, in Thar the orc tribes converge on the ruined fortress of Xul-Jarak, flocking to the banner of a charismatic warlord. There, he intends to sacrifice the scions of the great families of Melvaunt in a bloodritual to Gruumsh. The players will escape Melvaunt, search along the wilderness of Thar for the Fortress of Xul-Jarak, and then explore the dungeons of the ruined fortress and hopefully rescue the scions before they are sacrificed. There also is a Web Enhancement by Eric Cagle on the archives of wizards of the coast's website designed to scale the adventure to level 8. For example, it replaces the Owlbear with a Tyrannosaurus. This is an easy to scale adventure with much of the player's difficulty coming from intelligently avoiding problems, choosing how to approach each floor in the most tactical way, and quickly adjusting when something goes wrong. The adventure has sidebars including common orc battle cries (In Orc!), ready to use orc names, weather and random encounter table in Thar, a description of what happens if the party fails or partially succeeds, and suggested minis for each of the encounters. There is even an extended description of the bloodspear ritual, an event the party is not meant to encounter in a normal run. The appendix is detailed for all the humanoid characters including the scions and their equipment, the named villains, and variety of unnamed orcs the party will encounter. The fortress also offers an opportunity to introduce the players to the Underdark and the Zhentil Keep. There is a passage to the Underdark the players can accidentally explore, and return to later. Emissaries from Zhentil Keep have come to watch the ritual and have their own motivations. These npcs provide an opportunity for exposition and role playing at a point which otherwise might be combat heavy, acting as a valve for the first floor - helping or hurting the party with subtle magic should the difficulty be off.
Six months ago, an adventuring group that calls itself the Company of the Shining Stone learned of an aged wizard’s tomb that lay in the rocky foothills of a prominent mountain range, and sought to plunder it. What they were not counting on was that a band of stone giants would move into the immediate area to make their lair. The giants have rebuffed the company’s attempts at getting past them and to their goal. Now is the time of the annual fair in Adurath, a small town located not far from the tomb, and thus, the giants. The giants have no interest in the town or the tomb, but are instead interested in a rare mineral found only in that region. A few of the townsfolk have seen the giants, but there has been no confrontation other than between the giants and the Company of the Shining Stone.
In the aftermath of AD&D Second Edition's "Return to the Tomb of Horrors," the demilich Acererak was thought destroyed. In truth, his spirit lingered and now after eons he schemes once more to achieve divinity. The characters must travel to three extraplanar dungeons, in addition to the remains of the original Tomb, in order to stop this from coming to pass.
The Iron Route, an important trade road east of Phlan, is beset by competing bandits. An exiled Black Fist officer leads his band of mercenaries turned cloaked ruffians, while a mysterious dragonborn sorcerer commands screaming savages from the north. In this war over the trade route, the beleaguered merchants are the victims, and Phlan suffers from a lack of supplies. It’s up to adventurers to strike out and reopen this vital route.
Long rumored to be haunted by eerie specters, Kincep Mansion has stood for years, mostly untouched by nearby townsfolk. Now something is preying on the local villagers—something that comes from the house. Pgs. 46-69
Under raging storm clouds, the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich stands silhouetted against the ancient walls of Castle Ravenloft. Rumbling thunder pounds the castle spires. The wind’s howling increases as he turns his gaze down toward the village of Barovia. A lightning flash rips through the darkness, but Strahd is gone. Only the howling of the wind fills the midnight air. The master of Castle Ravenloft is having guests for dinner—and you are invited. Spans levels 1-10.
Important: The adventure is 1e but it has monster conversion notes for D&D 4th edition The town of Highport, once a human community overlooking Wooly Bay from its perch on the northern coast of the Pomarj, fell prey to hordes of humanoids swarming out of the jungle-covered hills surrounding the settlement. Though the orcs, goblins, kobolds, ogres, and gnolls razed much of the place in their ferocious rampages, the smoldering ruins they left behind soon became a new kind of community, a place of trade between the humanoid “locals” and the unsavory human traders who have no compunction about doing business with them. Slaves are a commodity in ready supply in Highport’s market, since many pirates raid up and down the coast of the bay, putting fishing villages to the torch and filling their holds with captured refugees. Slavery has become a thriving business in the town, and rumors abound of a cartel of Slave Lords who run things from behind the scenes, filling their coffers in secret from the buying and selling of human chattel. The trade has become so prolific that the good folk to the north have grown tired of these depredations and decided to fight back. Forces of righteousness and honor have recently descended upon Highport, some openly and others in secret, in various attempts to destroy the machinations of the Slave Lords and abolish the abominable enterprise that has taken far too many loved ones from home and hearth. One such doughty servant of goodness is Mikaro Valasteen, a cleric of Trithereon. Mikaro slipped unnoticed past the crumbling walls of Highport with a single mission: to rescue and transport as many slaves to their freedom as possible. Mikaro and a handful of faithful assistants located a number of escaped slaves—as well as rescued a few more not sufficiently restrained and guarded—and shepherded them through the gates and beyond the reach of their humanoid tormentors, returning them to their lands and homes. This covert freedom brigade enjoyed remarkable success early on, since the servants of the Slave Lords were often lax in their vigilance and sloppy in their efforts to prevent loss of the “merchandise.” After one too many shipments never made its destination, the humanoids stepped up their security and the normal channels of escape from Highport closed to Mikaro and his team. He cannot risk exposure by smuggling the freed slaves through the gates as merchandise any longer, since shipments of goods are now regularly stopped and checked. No longer able to free the slaves in that manner, Mikaro began hiding his charges in an abandoned villa in a particularly rundown part of the town. Although they are safe for the moment, their numbers have grown unmanageable, and the priest fears it is only a matter of time before someone slips up and brings slavers to their doorstep. Ever more desperate to find a new means of escape from Highport, Mikaro has started work on a plan that is both daring and dangerous. He intends to use a series of old sewers coupled with natural caverns running beneath the town as an escape route to the sea beyond the walls. But he needs someone to clear out the creatures and pitfalls he knows lie within. Pgs. 2-27
Giants have been raiding civilized lands in bands, with giants of different sorts in these marauding group. Death and destruction have been laid heavily upon every place these monster have visited. This has caused great anger in high places, for life and property loss means failure of the vows of noble rulers to protect the life and goods of each and every subject--and possible lean times for the rulers as well as the ruled. Therefore, a party of the bravest and most powerful adventurers has been assembled and given the charge to punish the miscreant giants. Remake of the original series of AD&D adventure.
"Gnolls have captured the heroes! After stripping the characters of all equipment except their armor and clothing, the gnolls drag them to an expansive briar maze known as the Twisted Thickets and set them loose. Then, armed to the teeth, the gnolls hunt down their prey. The characters must survive the hunt and outwit their pursuers. Stripped of your armor and weapons, you are cast into the Twisted Thicket and hunted like rabbits. If you want revenge, you must first survive Yeenoghu's evil Hunters. After dealing with the gnoll hunters, the heroes can try to reclaim their lost equipment and exact revenge on the tribe, which lairs in the caves beneath Dead Gnoll’s Eye Socket." Pgs. 2-14
The Raven Queen’s servants often seek out mighty allies. One of these is the black dragon Quetzallus, who resides in a deep cavern on the Shadowfell guarding a stream of souls flowing into the Raven Queen’s realm. But a death knight named Raxikarthus, betrayed by the Raven Queen in life, now seeks to enslave this dragon for his own purposes. He madly believes that he can stand against the Raven Queen, and seeks allies of all stripes—even her own servants—to do so. The death knight has found a pathway into the Shadowfell thought closed by mortals. Beneath a decayed keep, the undead dragonborn has reopened this portal and led his forces into the Shadowfell itself. The PCs are called in to beard the death knight in his lair. They find it abandoned, but discover a strange passage in the lower reaches. Pgs. 162-167
In this adventure, the Lord Commander of the Sharn Watch hires the heroes to investigate the murder of an actress. The investigation quickly spirals into a bloody dispute involving a dead wizard’s spell-book, political rivalries, and secrets that might foment war among the Five Nations. Pgs. 1-37
A newly constructed temple of Bahamut lies along a road outside a rural township. As the PCs approach the place, a scream for help erupts within it. Pgs. 60-65
In this adventure, the PCs discover that not all souls rest easy, particularly those spirited away to Nightwyrm Fortress. To learn the truth, players must pierce death's veil itself and enter the Shadowfell, where sinister echoes of life wing through eternal gloom. This adventure can be run as a stand-alone adventure or as Part Three of a three-part series of adventures (starting with P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens(TM) and P2 Demon Queen's Enclave(TM)) that spans 10 levels of gameplay.
Zhentish soldiers, Maerimydran drow, and Sharran cultists have forged a dark alliance to subjugate the peaceful land of Shadowdale. Elminster's tower lies in ruins, Lord Amcathra governs at the sufferance of the dale's conquerors, and the very Weave of magic in this embattled land seems to fray with each passing day. The Zhentish yoke lies heavy over Shadowdale—but the Dalesfolk are ready to fight for their freedom, if only they can find true heroes to lead the way!
The Auburn Desolation is a forsaken waste of treacherous sand and unbearable heat within the Shadowfell. Gloom-wrapped serpents and foul undead haunt the wastes, striking out at unsuspecting travelers from sandy graves. Pgs. 88-95
Lost within the ruined House Cannith citadel of Whitehearth, an arcane workshop somewhere in the perilous Mournland, is the key to constructing a terrible magic weapon. Agents of the Emerald Claw will stop at nothing to recover the ancient device. As malevolent forces hunt for the artifact, only the most resourceful heroes will reach Whitehearth first and discover the secrets that lie within. "Shadows of the Last War" is a stand-alone adventure for the Dungeons & Dragons game that will immerse your characters in the Eberron campaign setting. Designed to challenge 2nd-level D&D heroes, it pits them against one of Eberron’s most nefarious organizations.